Foggy

by Carl Fogarty

‘I don’t know, Mick, I think I’m too old for that.’

  ‘Bollocks man, it’s not like it used to be. You could make the switch without a problem. The bikes are so much easier to ride nowadays,’ he said.

  I think that pissed him off a bit. He had mastered the bikes when they were difficult and won five world titles. When the fuel was changed to unleaded, people like Max Biaggi had just jumped on a 500cc and won straight away. Loris Capirossi and Valentino Rossi made the move from 250ccs and were among the fastest in testing straight away. I’m sick of these old pro-GP journalists saying that the 500s are so hard to ride. They should listen to Doohan, the man himself.

  We helped Doohan with his bags at San Francisco airport and made sure he was okay getting into his hire car. As we drove down to Laguna, I asked Michaela what she thought about what Doohan had been saying. She said, ‘Let’s not go through all that again. It’s nice and simple now and you’ve not got many years left.’

  I had given Doohan the impression that I wasn’t too interested, and that was how it was left. If the same thing had happened five years before then I would have pushed it all the way. But I can’t help thinking that I would have been more motivated for the 2000 season if I was going into 500s.

  I was glad to be taking a 55-point lead into the Laguna races as it’s not a circuit where a rider like me can carry a lot of corner speed. If you tried to run fast through the first three corners, you would lose the front end. So I had to brake hard, then slide into bends like some of the other guys do, but that’s not really my style. And I’ve always struggled in qualifying at that track. Putting a new rear tyre in didn’t really make any difference, as it usually did, because I was always pushing the front tyre.

  Where everyone else gains that extra half a second or more with a new tyre, I recorded the same times. That’s why I was on the third row of the grid for the fifth year in succession. Still, by the end of the first lap, I was in front of Troy, who had been on pole. He claimed that a few people had cheated at the start. Although I finished fifth it was a moral victory as my nearest rivals, Troy and Edwards, were sixth and fourth respectively. It was the only time all year when we all had tyre problems at the same time. Troy gambled on a different tyre for the second race, which worked because he was second while I swapped fourth and fifth with Edwards. But, overall, I had only lost a couple of points in the championship, which was as good as I could have hoped for.

  Next stop, Brands! The build-up to the race was incredible. Almost every national newspaper did a full feature on me. I think it helped that Britain wasn’t having any success in any other sport. Geoff flew me down to the Brands Hatch Thistle Hotel on the Wednesday before the race, and we flew into London on the Thursday for the big press conference and photoshoot in Trafalgar Square. I felt sorry for the other riders. It was as though they didn’t exist in the eyes of the media. Not a single picture of them appeared anywhere.

  While I was confident that we could win there, it was obvious during Friday’s qualifying that we were struggling. Nothing that we tried seemed to be working. The pressure might have been starting to show because I was desperate to find the right set-up. When I tried to do a race distance on the Saturday, Davide pulled me in because my times were too slow. The tyre didn’t seem to be the problem because I had noted that it looked good. I thought the slow times were being caused by the set-up. But I was told that they wanted to try a different tyre, which had helped Troy achieve better times.

  By Superpole, I was still not confident that we knew what we wanted for the race. But a brief shower meant that Superpole was scrapped and riders were given 12 laps in which to set their fastest time. Davide had sensed we were struggling, and that the expectations were perhaps getting to me. So he grabbed me by the visor to shake me up. ‘Just go out and ride,’ he growled. My lap, in front of a massive 30,000 crowd who had turned up to watch qualifying, matched the one I had ridden at the Nurburgring – I was hanging off everywhere, on the limit at every corner. It was going to take something extra-special to wrestle pole position from me and no one came anywhere near it.

  The hotel at the track had been too busy the previous couple of nights, so I decided to stay in the motorhome that we had rented. There were 100,000 people expected – although, come the day, it was more like 120,000 – and I didn’t want to wrestle my way through the crowds first thing in the morning. But, because it wasn’t my motorhome, I couldn’t relax. There was no television to watch and nothing to make a brew with. It was all a bit of a cock-up and I had a rough night’s sleep.

  There was an important decision to make first thing the next morning. The team wanted me to continue to use the harder ‘P’ tyre compound that Troy had chosen. I wasn’t so sure and I should have stuck with my instincts, as I had at Misano, and opted for a softer ‘M’. I had a great start but didn’t really want to be in front early on. Edwards came past and I sat in behind him for three or four laps. ‘There’s not a problem here. This is very comfortable,’ I thought. After 10 laps he was starting to pull away, because I was losing grip and running wide. Troy appeared to be having the same problems but, when I was back down in fourth place, my bike started to judder and bang. ‘How the hell am I going to bring this thing home?’ I asked myself, just as there was a loud bang at Dingle Dell. A huge chunk had flown out of the tyre and I went straight into the pits.

  With a quick change I might have been able to salvage a few points in the lower positions. But the pit stop was a joke. It was like Laurel and Hardy. First the stand snapped on the welding. Then they couldn’t get the wheel nut off, then the spanner. All I could do was stand by in embarrassment. When I rejoined the race I was a lap behind and out of the points. I have never been so gutted and livid. Why did this have to happen in front of an incredible crowd of 120,000 of my fans?

  When I discovered that Honda had used the same tyre to come first and second, I was really stumped. But we opted to use a 16.5in, instead of the 17in, as that would run cooler. We also tried a new compound, which Michelin promised would not fall apart, although they weren’t sure what the grip would be like. We changed our minds so many times between races but decided on the safe option. John Reynolds had used the same tyre in the first race to finish fourth, so I didn’t think we could go too far wrong.

  It was the worst tyre I have ever put on in my career. I was even sliding around on the warm-up lap. It just about got me through to the end of the race before it also blew on the last lap. I had to ride around the problem from the word go and I manhandled the bike into fourth place, which was a great result considering Troy was back in 13th on the same tyre. It didn’t stop me feeling that I had let everyone down. This was the biggest single day attendance for any sporting event in Britain that year. Every time I moved a muscle, the crowds in the grandstand facing the garage were on their feet. I needed to tell them how much I appreciated their support, and why I hadn’t been able to bring them the win that they craved. So I went out onto the track to say how much I loved them all and still got the biggest cheer of the day.

  Then I needed some space. I hadn’t been able to move all weekend and the last thing I wanted to do was sign a load of autographs. I went back to the motorhome and my room in hospitality and waited for the crowds to clear, which felt like ages. I had been expected at the hotel’s annual charity night, but I was in no mood for a fancy dress party. I wasn’t to know, but a surprise presentation had been arranged. The organisers had presumed I would be there and, if I had won both races, I probably would have been. In the event my mum had to go up and collect it – something which annoyed a few people – as I just wanted to be a million miles away from Brands Hatch.

  I was snapping at everyone and felt very claustrophobic. The heat and humidity made things even worse. I couldn’t stand having to talk to people when I was in such a bad mood. All I wanted was to shut my eyes, open them again and find myself on a deserted beach. The next best thing would be for Geoff to fly me to his hotel half a mile away, where I could dive
into the pool. Eventually, when my dad took the kids, we decided to go for a Chinese with Graham and Louise, and Geoff and Mandy. We piled into a car and I crouched down in the front seat, so that nobody would spot me as we fought our way through the traffic. After the meal I sneaked back into the Thistle Hotel through a back door and went straight to my room.

  Geoff flew us back home the following morning and, while we sunbathed around the pool in the afternoon, we decided to join both couples for a week in Ibiza – the first summer holiday that me and Michaela had ever had.

  As it was a late booking, we were on a chartered flight but the airline looked after us and made sure that we weren’t bothered because I tend to have a lot of hassle in those situations. We had found an apartment on the nice side of the island, not where all the idiots stay.

  In a way, it didn’t help having a four-week break before the next round because this was the only time in the year when doubts started to creep into my mind. Brands was still gnawing away at me, even though I still led the championship by around 50 points. But the break did help take my mind off things. One afternoon we were at a harbour filled with fantastic £2 million yachts. I said to Graham, ‘I’m going to wander around to see if anyone recognises me.’ The biggest and best boat had a Union Jack on the back and, sure enough, the owner came up and said, ‘It’s Carl Fogarty, isn’t it? Do you want to come aboard?’ I was on the deck waving at everyone before he finished the word ‘aboard’.

  It belonged to a really nice bloke called Klaas Zwart, a multi-millionaire who owns Ascari Cars in Scotland. He also produced components for oil rigs and raced ex-Formula One cars in the Boss series. He was also a big fan and invited the rest of us aboard, after we had taken our shoes off, and allowed us to use his jet-ski and his smaller boat. In the end, I felt like we had out-stayed our welcome a bit but we arranged to go for a drink with his family that night.

  The holiday was supposed to be a break to recharge my batteries, but we ended up being up until 4am every morning. And it didn’t get me away from bike problems.

  We went to hire some bikes on the first day and, on the way to the rental shop, walked past a bar. The owner came running out.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s you. We have about 100 people in here every Sunday watching you race. Don’t bother hiring a bike, you can have mine for the week,’ he insisted.

  ‘Fine,’ I thought, ‘that saves me paying.’

  Throughout 1999 I seemed to get away without paying for anything!

  He leant me his Yamaha V-Max, their version of a Harley-Davidson, which I thought I could potter around on without a problem. Geoff and Mandy hired a 600cc Yamaha Enduro bike and we set off around the island, finding nice beaches. I didn’t like my bike one bit, as I’m not used to riding road bikes, whereas Geoff owns a Ducati. I could see he was itching for a go on the V-Max and I was more than happy to oblige. And he looked confident on it – for a few days.

  On one of the last days, on our way back to hand in the bikes, we were on some winding roads about 8km away from the resort. Coming into one corner at only about 20–30mph, Geoff realised that he was running too wide because the bike was very difficult to lean over. As the bend tightened, he tried to lean further over but fell off right in front of me and I just missed Mandy’s head (she was on the back) by anchoring the front and back brakes on. They both slid along the road. ‘Oooooooh! Bare legs and arms on Tarmac. That is really going to hurt,’ I cringed.

  Luckily nothing was coming in the opposite direction and they stopped sliding just before the barrier, which separated the road from a sheer drop down to the sea. I parked up and ran back. Geoff had only scraped his elbow but Mandy’s leg was like a slice of bacon, a big disc of raw steak. Her elbow was also a mess. She was jumping up and down shouting, ‘You bloody pillock, you bloody pillock!’ I thought he got off lightly. If it had been Michaela, I would have been over the cliffs.

  The bike was an even bigger mess. Because it was so heavy, the bars were bent, the front brake lever had snapped off, the indicator and mirror were knackered and the exhaust was bent. Geoff and Mandy didn’t want to get on it again, so it was down to me to ride it back with a very worried Michaela on the back. She nipped me every time I locked the back brake, while I struggled to steer the bent bars. To add insult to injury, we had to ride past a cafe packed with bikers who were at a Harley convention! They all started cheering, thinking I had been invited. As we limped back into the street the guy was stood outside his bar. At first he was smiling but, as we got nearer, his face started to drop as he noticed the damage. All I could do was state the obvious: ‘There’s been an accident.’ He took it very well, as Geoff was not far behind and offered to pay for all the repairs.

  The next job was to try and clean Mandy’s wound, to prevent infection. She was climbing the walls as Michaela tried to scrub the dirt out. I knew that she wouldn’t scream if I had a go. So I grabbed the brush and rubbed hard as she writhed in agony. A piece of Tarmac had even become lodged in her ankle, so we had to dig that out as well. The doctor gave her an injection to be on the safe side. It was only to be a matter of weeks before Mandy needed much more than an injection to repair the injuries from another bike accident.

  All things considered, I was ready to race again by the time of the Austrian round. Edwards had tried to wind me up by saying, ‘Carl always cracks under this kind of pressure.’ I couldn’t remember the last time I had cracked under pressure. He seemed to be forgetting that I had won three world titles in the previous five years. But what did stop me from sleeping was the rain on Saturday night. The heavens opened and it continued to rain on race day. Maybe things were starting to turn against me.

  Parts of the track had started to dry by the start of the race, so we decided on cut slicks in the front and back. Edwards gambled on a cut slick in the front and a slick in the back. That would obviously suit him if the track continued to dry, which it did. Late on in the race my tyres were like destroyed slicks, but Edwards hadn’t pulled away. Then it started to rain again, catching a lot of riders out, including Slight and Corser. All I had to do was keep the bike upright to clinch second, as Edwards slid all over the track in front of me to win a good race. It rained throughout the second race and we both started cautiously. But, after a few laps down in 11th, I thought, ‘Bugger this! Even if I finish, I’m only going to collect four or five points.’ So I started to lap about three seconds quicker and moved up past Edwards to sixth before two more riders fell off and I ended up in fourth. I had kept my cool and come through a big test.

  Assen, the very next week, was my territory. If it stayed dry in Holland no one would come anywhere near me. And it was boiling hot – in front of an army of around 60,000 British fans. I was determined to concentrate on my own thing and even opted to use a tyre that nobody ever used, a different shaped 16.5inch. That also threw Troy’s preparation because he had tried it but didn’t like it. I was first away and led from start to finish.

  Obviously, Troy switched tyre for the second race and pulled a 1.5 second lead until I was able to find a clear track in second place. The gap stayed the same for two laps until I reined in half a second per lap. He must have been thinking, ‘What the hell can I do about this?’ There was nothing he could do. I breezed past him and he was demoralised. It was just about the first time that I had heard another rider admit that he’d been totally helpless. ‘On this circuit, there is nothing anyone can do to beat this guy,’ Corser said. The crowd went bananas as I had one hand on the world championship trophy.

  The sensible thing to do would have been to wrap myself in cotton wool before the following weekend’s race at Hockenheim. Instead I went motocrossing on the Wednesday with a couple of mates called Garth Woods, who owns an engineering company in Blackburn, and Austin Clews. Needless to say I had a horrendous crash. The bike landed sideways after a jump, threw me off and my wrist twisted under the bike. At first I thought it was broken, then I realised that I was dazed and my neck was stiff. I was sat in t
he sand at Preston Docks, four days before I could clinch the world title and suddenly thought, ‘What on earth are you doing? Just put the bike back in the van, go home while you are in one piece and don’t tell anyone.’

  My wrist was still sore when I arrived at Hockenheim, with a lead of 71 points and needing just one more win to secure the title. I was starting to feel the pressure a bit. It seemed that everyone except me had it down as a foregone conclusion. I hadn’t slept well for a few weeks, I was off my food and I didn’t have a lot of time for people. That’s part and parcel of my dedication. When you have such a big lead, there is always a nagging doubt that you could throw it all away. I just wanted to get down to business and, if things went well, start enjoying it all on Sunday night. But things never seemed to be that simple.

  I was in the paddock on Thursday afternoon with Geoff, sorting out a few last minute details before practice started the following day. Michaela and Mandy had taken a couple of scooters around the track. Mandy looked nervous, because she hadn’t had much experience of riding a scooter. The next thing I knew, Michaela was running towards me screaming. ‘Mandy is really hurt. There’s been a terrible accident,’ she shouted. ‘Mandy’s had a crash, I thought she was dead,’ she kept repeating, almost hysterically.

  Me and Geoff jumped on scooters and set off to where Michaela was pointing. One of the doctors happened to be walking across the paddock at the same time, so he jumped on the back of my bike. By the time we reached the scene there was an ambulance already there, as it had been parked opposite the spot where the accident had happened. As Michaela and Mandy were riding down the straight, the driver of one of the machines that paints the markings on the track must have just turned towards them.

  Michaela, who is used to riding a scooter, managed to swerve out of the way. But Mandy panicked. The truck had a bar, to attach a lamp to, sticking out of the side and it smashed into her leg, practically slicing it off just above the ankle. Both bones had been sheared through and her foot was hanging on by a bit of muscle. She had also been thrown down the track and had landed on her head. There was blood everywhere and her teeth were smashed. She was just conscious, although Michaela said she had been knocked out at first.